PPGD: Boomer's Story Chapter 2

Boomer sat outside of the tent. He didn’t feel like dealing with Butch and Brick for the rest of the night. Boomer had tried to go to sleep, but he couldn’t, no matter how much he wanted to. He laid down, looking up at the clouds, occasionally reaching in his pocket to look at the chalk, since it seemed to be the only thing that could comfort him now.

He looked up at the clouds, not quite able to go to sleep, but not quite awake either. He stared at the stars, twinkling above. He lost track of the time, until he heard something a distance away. The sound of wheels rolling against the plains grass, getting closer and closer…

He looked up and saw a big, steel truck barreling its headlights upon him. The driver’s side door opened and a figure stepped from it.

“Boomer…good to see you again. Care to have a word?” He spoke in a deep, emotionless voice. Boomer instantly recognized it as Dr. Brisbaine, the Chief Director of the project that revived his brothers and he.

“Dr. Brisbaine…” he said, shielding his eyes from the headlights. “What are you doing here?”

Dr. Brisbaine got closer, so that Boomer could look up at his face. His small spectacles were illuminated by the headlights, making him look, to Boomer, like a demon with glowing eyes.

“Very well, then I’ll be blunt,” said Dr. Brisbaine. “When Weasel said that you all were free for the time being, he wasn’t entirely truthful. You all were being watched.”

Boomer looked down, starting to get nervous. Boomer never did like Dr. Brisbaine, because usually whenever he talked to Boomer, it was to criticize him and knock him down a peg. And Boomer knew he must have been in for it now.

“You were being monitored to see how you would interact without supervision, since you all have been relatively isolated from the outside world” continued the doctor. “Your behavior was…interesting, to say the least.”

Boomer said nothing.

”I had always noticed an odd behavior since your revival. Back when you were first created, our data shows you were brash, arrogant, hot-headed and aggressive. However, since your revival, you have been different. At the base, your aggression seemed to have decreased so much it is almost nonexistent. You talked only when you absolutely had to, becoming extremely anti-social and shy, and even when you do talk, you hardly ever make eye contact. You always seemed to be day-dreaming. Not to mention the fact that you rarely show your emotions externally in anyway whatsoever.”

”So?” said Boomer plainly, still looking at the ground.

“Today, we hoped to see some change in your behavior. And, I must say, you gave us a lot more than we bargained for.”

Boomer said nothing.

“You encountered the Powerpuff Girls, and exhibited an extraordinary display of emotions. You lashed out at your brother. You flat-out refused to fight. In your short thirty second encounter with Bubbles, you displayed more emotion, intelligence, and talkativeness than you have showed at the base during the year you have been there. Quite an inconsistency, wouldn’t you say?”

“Get to the point,” said Boomer. “What are you going to do to me?”

Dr. Brisbaine removed his spectacles and looked straight down at Boomer.

“You and your brothers were cloned from DNA we retrieved after your battle with the Girls, years and years ago.”

“And?”

“We think that, during your revival process, some sort of…anomaly must have surfaced. Something that we had missed during your first conception. I’ve suspected it for quite some time, considering your behavior, but certain factors prevented me from…correcting the problem. However, after today’s…event, your behavior has shown to be an even greater thanYou have a problem that in your brain we need to correct immediately.

Boomer looked up at Brisbaine for the first time during their encounter.

”Why?”

”Your emotional problems interfere with what we need you for. You are a soldier. You need to be able to fight. Fraternizing with the enemy and anti-social behavior aren’t exactly qualities we look for in Nation Defense.”

Boomer thought about what Brisbaine had just said, then picked up on something odd in his previous statement.

“’Enemy’? The government considers the Powerpuff Girls an enemy?”

Brisbaine paused.

Boomer was someone who thought constantly, whether he wanted to or not. He had realized a lot of strange things about this project, and he wasn’t going to let it slide this time. Not when now they demanded operation on his brain.

Boomer narrowed his eyes and looked straight at Brisbaine, trying not to sound nervous.

”Let me ask you something, Doctor. Why would the government spend so much money and resources to revive us, when the last time we were alive, we leveled a city for no good reason?”

Brisbaine did not reply.

”The government wants defense and they seek it from us, three extremely dangerous boys created by an insane green monkey. They have the Justice League and the Teen Titans for defense. What use are we?”

Brisbaine’s expression still did not change, nor did he reply.

”You don’t plan on using us for defense at all, do you? You want us to launch an attack on something. And now you’re telling me the government considers the Girls an ‘enemy?’ Something tells me that whoever you work for doesn’t exactly have this nation’s defense in their state of mind.”

Brisbaine still stood there like a stone wall.

”Well?”

Brisbaine stood still for a moment longer, and then began to laugh. The laugh chilled Boomer to the bone.

“You’re smarter than you look, boy. And to think, all this time I thought you had no attachment to reality whatsoever.” said Brisbaine, deviously smirking in a way that made Boomer very uncomfortable.

“Whatever” said Boomer, without emotion, looking down again. He did his best to hide the fear that was slowly creeping into his mind. “Well, I’m afraid I have to decline your offer for the operation. Now, if it’s alright with you, I’m going to go in my brother’s tent now…” He turned to walk into the tent.

He walked four steps before he felt a sharp pain in his neck. He yelped. He put his hand to his neck, feeling a something thick jammed on the outside of it. He felt blood trickle down his neck.

He turned back to see Brisbaine holding his tranquilizer gun, still having that devious smile on his face. It was the kind of smirk made by lawyers and politicians; the kind of smirk that meant they had just gotten away with doing something awful.

Boomer tried to yell, to wake his brothers up, but his vision began to get dizzy. His eyelids began to feel like great iron weights. Boomer tried to keep his eyes open, but to no avail. The world went dark…
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Boomer dreamed he was back at headquarters, in a tube filled with water, with an oxygen mask strapped to his face. He looked out, seeing Brisbaine and Weasel. He could here them arguing about something.

“Brisbaine, for the last time, we have to settle for this. If we attempted to use the other, he could kill us all. I will not stand by and have you endanger the lives of everyone at the station” said Weasel, angrily.

“I have reviewed the data. It shows this one somehow has highly accelerated gamma wave activity, probably due to some sort of error in the cloning process” said Brisbaine, in his usual cold, emotionless demeanor.

“And this is a bad thing? Gamma waves mean that he is capable for higher reasoning and extremely unique unconscious. True, this may cause some difficulties in his social development, but still…we should be glad” argued Weasel.

“The higher-ups fear that he may be more likely to commit treasonous actions.”

”The higher-ups be damned! All my calculations show that this higher gamma wave increase can only have positive effects on his ability to reason. The backup…the other one… that thing is a monster! The data shows he has a 96.42 chance to exhibit sociopathic and sadistic tendencies.”

”We’re trying to create soldiers, Weasel. Sadistic tendencies might not be the worst thing to have.”

”Brisbaine, have you lost your mind! This thing could kill us all the minute we activate it! I will not endanger the lives of the other scientists here! I don’t care what the Secretary of Defense has to say about it. I have my principles” said Weasel, glaring.

”The Secretary of Defense?” said Brisbaine, smirking. “Oh, Weasel. So intelligent, yet so naïve.”

”Naïve? What do you-“

“Nevermind, Weasel. Nevermind.” He stared at Boomer through the glass tube. “Since I have no wish to waste our resources, we will use this one until we have reason not to. But I will be keeping an eye on it, and if it starts to act up, we’re using the back-up. I’m the head of this project, Weasel. I have the final say. Are we clear?”

”Rrr…Fine” said Weasel, glaring. He walked out of the room.

There was a flash of light. Boomer found himself standing in front of huge mirror. He looked at himself. He looked okay, aside from the fact he was nearly naked. However, the reflection started moving on its own. It glared at him.

”Who the hell do you think you are?” said the reflection.

Boomer could only stare in amazement.

The reflection reached out and grabbed him by the throat. The reflection morphed to become Butch.

”You are a helpless piece of dog turd on the face of existence. I’m tired of your face.”

It tightened its grip on Boomer’s throat. He could not longer breath. The ghoul turned into Brisbaine.

“You are an anomaly. And anomalies must be destroyed. They demand blood.”

Boomer could feel his neck cracking. He closed his eyes, wincing in pain. When he opened his eyes and saw what the ghoul had become now. He widened his eyes in horror.

”Bubbles?” he whimpered out.

Bubbles clamped down harder on his throat. She looked up at him. Her blue eyes burned with a demonic intensity. She glared, turning her usually cute, innocent face into that of someone chasing their own bloodlust. She smirked.

”The Bubbles you know is gone. I’m hardcore now” said Bubbles, in a voice far different from her normal voice; it was a voice that sounded as if it had echoed from the very depths of hell itself.

Boomer felt his throat collapse and he cried out.
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Boomer woke up to the sound of his own screams. The cold, steel table which he laid on was drenched with cold sweat. He found himself staring at a steel ceiling. He tried to move, but he found he was unable to. His hands and feet were clamped down, and there was steel retrained on his neck to he couldn’t even more his head from side to side.

Brisbaine loomed over him, holding a scalpel. He still smiled the smirk that Boomer had begun to associate with evil itself.

“Good morning, sunshine” said Brisbaine sarcastically. “I think its time we begun the operation.”